The developer, which built San Francisco’s Four Seasons on Market Street and Millennium Tower on Mission Street, won approvals June 18 to construct a $150 million office campus on a 17-acre expanse of weed-choked asphalt in Burlingame overlooking the bay.

The 700,000-square-foot Burlingame Point project, which Millennium hopes to start in late 2012 or early 2013, could represent the first Class A office campus developed directly on the water on the Peninsula since Pacific Shores was built in 2000.

“To have this much raw land directly on the bay is pretty exciting — we think it will be a strong draw for office tenants,” said Millennium Partners Vice President Sean Jeffries.

Unusual path

The means by which Millennium Partners came into possession of 17 acres of land just south of San Francisco International Airport was a bit unusual. The company was not looking to jump into the Peninsula office development game. But its longtime financial partner, the Hong Kong-based fund US Land, asked for some help winning approvals for a 9-acre surface parking lot at 300 Airport Road.

Millennium Partners agreed to help and began exploring hotel and residential uses on the site. During the process, however, Millennium became enchanted with the site and in 2006 decided to buy the adjacent 17-acre weedy lot at 350 Beach St. that had sat fallow since a drive-in movie theater there went belly-up in the 1990s. Eventually they made the decision to do a project with four commercial buildings comprising just under 700,000 square feet.

The campus, which will sit across an inlet from the Coyote Point Recreation Area, would include two five-story buildings on the east side of the property and two taller buildings, seven and eight stories, on the west side. The current road, which runs along the waterfront would be moved into the center of the property, freeing up the waterfront for parkland and a bike path. Millennium Partners will build 3.5 acres of new parks. The architect is DES Architects.

Appeasing sailboarders

The approval process was more streamlined than Millennium Partners is used to. While the developer is accustomed to negotiating with a wide range of stakeholders in San Francisco — advocates of cycling, affordable housing, historic preservation and open space — the most vocal group questioning the project in Burlingame was a coalition of sailboarders. The group was concerned with the effect that the new construction would have on wind off Coyote Point, a popular spot for windsurfing and kiteboarding instruction. In the hours before the Burlingame City Council approved the project, Millennium Partners reached an agreement with the San Francisco Sailboarding Association The developer agreed to pay for new sailboarding launching spots to the north and south of the project, a value of about $300,000.

Jeffries said his company plans to start the infrastructure work on the project this year, with vertical construction starting next year. It’s unlikely that the project will be purely speculative, but he said it could go forward with less than 50 percent leased if a strong credit tenant emerges.

“There is not a magic number,” said Jeffries. “It’s a very strong market — everything we have heard and seen tells us that we would not need to be 100 percent leased on the first phase to start construction.

‘Where are the new projects?’

Burlingame Point will compete with a handful of entitled projects ready to go on the Peninsula. At 400-450 Concar Drive in San Mateo, Hines is looking for a tenant for a 267,000-square-foot project next to the Hayward Park Caltrain station. At Centennial Towers in South San Francisco, developer Jack Myers and Stockbridge Real Estate Funds have leased about half of its 325,000-square-foot Centennial Place and have another 380,000-square-foot tower that already has a foundation in place and could be built in a year. At Bay Meadows in San Mateo, Wilson Meany is seeking a tenant for five buildings totaling 1 million square feet.

The development also includes about 70,000 square feet for retail and recreation facilities. This will include an LA Sports Club, the high-end fitness chain that Millennium Partners owns. The LA Sports Club will have a large outdoor pool and will be adjacent to bike paths and possibly kayak rental facilities. There will also be five or six restaurants — more casual spots catering to both the office workers and fine dining options that would appeal to community residents. Jeffries said he would like to build the LA Sports Club first so that it is already in place when the first office buildings open.

“We think the sports club will be a strong draw for the office tenants,” he said.

Jon Moeller of CBRE is marketing the property for Millennium Partners.

“We have not seen new development in this area for 12 years with the exception of Centennial Towers,” said Moeller. “You have a tenant base right now looking for new, high-quality space. You have companies growing like wildfire coming out of Palo Alto and Redwood City. You take tenants around to some of the buildings that have large vacancies and they say, ‘Really? Where are the new projects?’”

The attraction of Burlingame Point’s stunning bay front views and recreation may be somewhat offset by the site’s inaccessibility to public transportation, according to Mike Cobb, a senior vice president with Colliers International’s Peninsula office.

“The environment (at Burlingame Point) is unique and 10 years ago it would have been an amazing site,” he said. “But it doesn’t have the transit infrastructure or the amenities that users are looking for right now.”

Millennium Partners says it will work with tenants to create its own transportation infrastructure, providing shuttle service to BART and Caltrain.

Meanwhile, Millennium Partners is about 85 percent sold on its 419-unit luxury tower at 301 Mission St., the most expensive residential building ever erected in San Francisco. Next up is a condo project at 706 Mission St., the environmental study for which is scheduled to be released on June 27. Jeffries said Millennium Partners remains committed to downtown highrise construction and is busy entitling a major project in Los Angeles. But if things go well in Burlingame, the company would be open to other office projects.

“I wouldn’t say we are interested in office development — it’s not our forte,” said Jeffries. “What interested us here was the ability to work with the neighbors and create new uses for the area and work on rezoning and reprogramming. If we found another opportunity with similar challenges, we would consider it.”